Game Demo is Active!

Greetings 3twins fans!

Today I have some really amazing news!  Our game demo is live on our sister site: lectrajack.com!  Now you will need to download the Unity player add-on to run it, but we assure you that is a safe add-on and won't negatively affect your browser.  You may also need to enable that add-on if your browser is set to automatically disable such things.

Also, we are phasing out blogger, and are going to start posting on wordpress on our site, 3twins.net, so please check it out.

~Jason

NINTENDO still has my vote!

Many have said my love for Nintendo is biased, and that they are the gaming company that sits on the sidelines watching as X-box & Sony duke it out for top rank. This seems to be a running joke within certain gaming sections but I’m okay with that and so is Nintendo it seems, and why shouldn’t they be? While my love leans towards, Metroid, Mortal Kombat, & Mario Bros etc., we can always fall back on the statistics.  There are forty games that have sold over 15million dollars in copies, Nintendo  is in the lead (#1 Tetris 143 million,  #2Wii Sports 82 million) with seven of their games being in the top ten and a total of  twenty-two being among the forty.  I truly believe that their unique and somewhat isolated approach in production and design style when put up against their competitors is what has allowed them to thrive all of these years and I don’t think that will change anytime soon.  

~Michael Lude

NEW character!

Today I bring you another new character for our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages.  George the Brown Wizard!  George is the wizard of time and is a Centaur.  In Midieville Centaurs are not just half-human half-horse creatures, they are half-human half-any-animal.

Be sure to share your thoughts on this and other characters we've announced!

~Jason

Midieville Returns

With all the excitement about our upcoming Nintnendo Wii-U game Of Mages & Pages we have decided to continue our story of Midieville.  The latest saga will bridge the gap between the Spellbook saga, and the story in the game.  If you remember the "Duel" episode that we released a few years back that featured Marvin challenging Naaj to a wizard's duel, this is actually the first episode of the ten part story.  You can watch that episode here. Take a good look at the art because it's all changing when the new episodes start rolling out!  We will begin debuting new episodes prior to the release of our game.  Keep checking in with our Blog, Facebook page, and Twitter feed to stay up to date on all the Of Mages & Pages news.

~Andy

New Character! Peter the White Wizard

Greetings 3twins fans!

This week I give you the concept image for another of our 12 wizards.  This is one of my favorites so far, Peter the White Wizard!  He is a Greckle (rock person) who hails from the Northwest, but his station is in the central area of Midieville as he protects the Sphinxes who reside in the desert realm.  Peter is wizard over day itself and is the tallest of the 12 wizards.

What part if any will Peter play in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages?  Well, you'll just have to wait and find out!

~Jason

So long, farewell!

A few weeks back I blogged about a couple of forgotten characters in Midieville that may or may not make a return in future stories, or our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game Of Mages & Pages.  Today I'd like to share about a character that never appeared in Midieville who we have decided will not be realized.  Princess Thafi, the daughter to Mathos.

King Mathos was originally going to be an older royal who lived in the White Castle with his daughter, Thafi. Thafi was planned to be a sassy teenager who was often kidnapped by the Black Knight, or who would ask questions the audience may want answered.  Basically she was like Blonde originally was in Hatman & Indigo.  We have since decided to make King Mathos much younger, and single, so it wouldn't make sense for him to have a teenage daughter.

So, we say "so long, farewell" to the unpublished teenage daughter of our good king.

~Andy

Marvin's new look

Greetings 3twins fans!

Today I'm bringing you a design of what Marvin the Blue Wizard will look like in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game, Of Mages & Pages!

I'm not going to go into too much more, but this is a very close to finalized version of Marvin as he will appear as a playable character in the game.

Until next time.

~Jason

NEW Character!

So, I know I've been sharing TONS of new characters, but we're not done yet!!!  Today I'm bringing another new character, Fiddle D. Jibbit.  An elderly Pollywoggle lady who will be a playable character in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages!

I've been asked why a lot of these preview images are in black and white.  Why do I do that?  Well, I can't reveal everything all at once, and since color is going to play a big role in Of Mages & Pages, I'm saving some of those details for later!

~Jason

Another New Character Another New Creature!

So last week I brought you a new character, Uberon the Shadow Folk.  A new character and creature that will be featured in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game, Of Mages & Pages.  This week I bring you yet another creature and another new character!  Today I present to you: Nyln, the King of the Greckles!

The Greckles are a fierce rock people who live in the northwest most part of the land of Midieville.  What part will Nyln play in the game?  Well, you'll just have to wait and find out!

~Jason

New Character New Creature!

Last week I brought you an image of an old character, Xilva, that has finally been realized for our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game, Of Mages & Pages.  This week I bring you a brand new character that is a new type of creature!

Here you see an early concept by S. LaDon Ware of Uberon one of the Shadow Folk.  The Shadow Folk are a formless race of conniving opportunists who love tricking unsuspecting travelers into getting lost and losing many of their belongings.  They live in the darkest depths of the Woodlands of Mystery.  How does Uberon play into our game?  Well, you'll just have to wait and play it to find out!

~Jason

Finally Xilva!

Several years back when Andy wrote the first few scripts for Midieville they looked much different than anything we have on the website.  The stories were meant to be full 10-20 minute animated adventures following a trio of creatures sent on quests by the king.  Those three adventurers were: Marvin the blue wizard, Gidju the dragon and Xilva the elf.  Though when we started making the Midieville shorts they were mostly just a way for us to cut our teeth in animation and served as tests for things we wanted to try out.  For logistical reasons, the lovely Xilva was cut from those and we just never found a good story point to add her into the fray... until now.

Now that we're taking the world of Midieville and putting it in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game, Of Mages & Pages, Xilva has a place in the land of Midieville once more.  So, I present to you a peek at one of the oldest and most neglected characters from the 3twins wheelhouse, Xilva the elf.  This concept drawing comes from S. LaDon Ware.  Xilva will be joining our heroes at some point in the game and finally take her place next to Marvin and Gidju!

~Jason

E3 excitement

Last week was E3 and like always there were some awesome gaming announcements.  One of the new games coming to the Wii-U that has really excited me was presented as "Mario Maker."  This game should be released in 2015, but take a look at this video for how awesome this will be!!!   I can't wait!

~Andy

Shark House Concept

Today I decided to share with you all a really cool concept image that I received from S. LaDon Ware last week.  This concept features The Red Witch Naaj's house made out of a sky shark.  This image or one similar to it will be featured in our second DLC after the game releases!

That's right, our game, Of Mages & Pages: Teento's Revenge coming out on the Nintendo Wii U will have DLC (or as Nintendo calls it "Add On Content").  What will the DLC offer?  Well, for now I'm going to leave that under our hat, but you can expect it to be extremely worth it! 

I know I personally am quite hesitant with spending extra money on DLC unless I feel it greatly adds to a game.  That is the approach we are taking with our DLC.  But more on that later!  For now, just take a look at the cool shark house to get another feel for the world of Midieville featured in our game!

~Jason

Games That Tell A Story

Michael’s post on Monday left me feeling a bit nostalgic about my video game roots. I grew up gaming on a ColecoVision. The classic system boasted a stunning 16-color display at 256x192 resolution and was powered by a whopping 3.58 Mhz processor and 1 whole KB of RAM! Okay, that’s pittance compared to today’s machines, but in the early 80’s that was all we needed to play classics like Lady Bug, Mouse Trap, and Donkey Kong.

It wasn’t long, though, before my family upgraded to a Nintendo Entertainment System and I became captivated with Super Mario Brothers, Final Fantasy, and The Legend of Zelda. From my first taste of those latter two titles I was hooked on role-playing games. While I loved the simple, puzzle solving aspect of the single-screen games on the ColecoVision, it completely blew my mind that a video game could also tell a complex story! I invested hours in Final Fantasy and Zelda not just because the game play was fun, but because, like a good book, I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next!

This is one of the many things that excites me about our upcoming game for the Nintendo Wii U, Of Mages & Pages. It’s going to be a beautiful blend of the puzzle solving aspects I loved in classic arcade games along with the rich story telling we find in the RPG genre.

Plus, there’s one thing you won’t find in Of Mages & Pages that has always bothered me about RPGs: heroes walking into houses uninvited just to chat with random strangers who are seemingly unfazed by home invasion! And with that gaming flaw in mind, I leave you with this hilarious strip about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: http://9gag.com/gag/arpwbgp?ref=fb.s

Until next time,

~Steve

The Purple Wizard

A while back I showed one of the more important secondary characters in our game, Leon the green wizard.  Today I am showing a concept drawing of one of the other wizards from the wizard council.  There are 12 in total.  The image accompanying this post shows Jeff the purple wizard.  As you can see, Jeff is a unicorn.  This concept drawing also shows a more detailed version of what his staff will look like.

Each of the 12 wizards in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages are a different type of magical creature and most of them will only be seen briefly, but we are working out the designs for each of them.  Again, this is just concept art, Jeff's final design will likely change a bit, but I wanted to share another little tidbit from the game since I haven't in a while.

~Jason

Summer Blockbusters

Hey it's that time again. Time for your friendly neighborhood blogger to post and time for Summer Blockbusters. I stole that line from Spiderman, but you probably knew that already. All the excitement of summer blockbusters, The Amazing Spiderman 2, X-Men-Days of Future Past, Transformers-Age of Extinction. What a cornucopia of choices. The best part is that the excitement doesn't end there...

Later this year 3twins will be introducing our new Nintendo WiiU game to the market. I for one can't wait. Stay tuned to this blog and our website for more information as we get closer and closer, and if you pay really close attention, you may even get a sneak peek into some of the character designs.

~Tom

Nine Years!

The image attached to this post is our first company logo.  It looks so outdated to me now...  Last Sunday marked eight years since the first Hatman comic went online.  And this month marks nine years that 3twins.net has been a registered entity on the web.  It seems crazy when I think about it; how many milestones have happened in that time, how many pitfalls and obstacles we've ran into and overcome.

It took us a year to get our first comic finished!  Three years later we were approaching our 50th issue.  Then we went into a semi-hiatus for four years so I could get my bachelor's degree.  We've created two audio comic series: Hatman & Indigo and Ion Bunny, and two web cartoons: Midieville and Star Fetched.  Now we're working on a game for the Nintendo Wii U.

We've been to comic cons, had loads of meetings, written tons of scripts, and commissioned thousands of pieces of art.  Some of the other bloggers have recently pointed out how much we have done.  However, as the captain of this ship, I say, "we haven't even started yet!"

~Jason Kuder
3twins.net Incorporated
Co-Founder, Chairman, & CEO

Sketching A Script To Life!

Everything starts with an idea and that idea is brought to life by an artist. Like any idea in the world of media and entertainment you must first understand the story and it's characters, then you go straight to sketching. This requires hours of sketching and refinement until the artist captures the heart of the story. The next step is carefully inking (marker) all the sketches into a final image, then i scan it onto the computer and bring it to life with color.

There was a time before Disney went CG, they were known for their reliance on traditional artists, storyboards, and sketches. Have no fear, artists are still needed to sketch out a visual depiction, whether it be for animation, movies, or a video game. Even in the world of Disney and CG, sketching remains the quickest and most valued shorthand used to bring any idea to life.

~Michael

What's Your Favorite 3twins Character?

I was thinking about the time I went to Yokohama, Japan. I felt like I was in a video game! Neon colors, happy synthesized theme songs for everything (including crossing signals) and every business had it's own anime mascot. That's right, even the adults in Japan had their favorite anime characters. I challenge you to find your own theme character and post them right here on our blog. From any cartoon, comic book, video game or whatever. If you're short on ideas review our past posts and find one here. We have lot's of lovable characters that are looking for supporters. I, myself, choose Bojac the Centaur, from the upcoming hit Wii U game "Of Mages and Pages" by your friends here at 3twins.net. Post your favorites here and let's see who wins!!!

~Tom

The Black Knight Image

So, Friday I posted an image of what the character of the Gold Knight will most likely look like in our Wii U game Of Mages & Pages.  Today I give you The Black Knight and how he will likely look in our game.

~Jason